RESTRICTED  WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/REG160/M/2 
7 February 2006 
 
 (06-0508) 
Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
Forty-First Session Original:  English 
 
 
 
EXAMINATION OF THE FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN  
THE UNITED STATES AND CHILE, GOODS AND SERVICES 
 
Note on the Meeting of 24 January 2006  
 
Chairman: Mr. A. Egger (Switzerland) 
 
1. The meeting was convened in document WTO/AIR/2734. 
2. Under Agenda Item C.X of its 41st Session, the Committee on Regional Trade Agreements 
(hereinafter CRTA or the Committee) took up the second round of examination of the Free Trade 
Agreement between the United Stat es and Chile, Goods and Services. 
3. The Chairman  noted that the proceedings of the firs t round examination of both the Goods 
and Services Aspects of this Agreement, which took place in the 39th Session of the Committee in 
February 2005, could be found in document WT/REG 160/M/1.  Since then, the Parties had provided 
replies to questions put by delegations which had been circulated in document WT/REG160/5. 
4. The following items were discussed: 
 A. Item C.X-A – Goods Aspects 
 B. Item  C.X-B – Services Aspects  A. G
OODS ASPECTS  
5. Given that the Committee had already had a round of discussion under each of the headings 
of the Standard Format, document WT/REG160/3 and Corr.1, the Chairman  proposed to open the 
floor for comments and questions by broad Section. 
6. The representative of Australia  asked the Parties, under Section II ("Trade Related 
Provisions"), to provide more deta iled information concerning the fill rates for products that were 
subject to tariff-rate quotas, and in particular whet her these fill rates had incr eased in line with the 
increases specified in the Agreement. 
7. The representative of the European Communities  asked the Parties to provide examples of 
products or sectors where they had cooperated or were cooperating in the field of standards or 
technical regulations, as called for in the Agreemen t.  Noting that the Agreement did not include a 
specific section for geographical indications (GIs) as  the TRIPs Agreement did, but only referred to 
GIs protected through trade marks, he also asked whether the Agreement prevented or limited in any 
way the rights of the Parties for establishing or maintaining a sui generis  system of GIs protection, 
and whether the Parties provided for the co-existen ce of GIs and trade marks in certain cases. The 
representative of Chile  asked that both questions be put in wr iting so that they could answer in the 
same manner. WT/REG160/M/2 
Page 2  
 
  8. Under Section III ("General Provisions of th e Agreement"), the representative of the 
European Communities
 recalled that the reasonable length of time for transition periods, as per GATT 
Article XXIV:5(c), was, in principle, considered to be ten years; parties to an agreement were able to 
extend it only in exceptional circumstances, in whic h case they had to justify the need for a longer 
period to the Council for Trade in Goods.  Noting th at the Agreement called the United States to allow 
access to its sugar market in 12 years, he request ed the United States to explain why longer transition 
periods applied for sugar.  The representative of the United States  said that the requirement for the 
reasonable period of time was not a hard requirement  and exceptions were permitted.  Stressing that 
this was a very comprehensive Agreement, c overing what her delegation considered to be 
"substantially all the trade", she recalled that the w hole sugar sector would be completely liberalized 
in the end for all products, all trade and all tariff lines ; this is why the Parties had agreed to slightly 
extend the transition period.  She also announced that  her delegation would answer this question more 
specifically in writing.  The representative of Chile  added that it was important to bear in mind that 
the issue of transition periods was something current ly discussed in the framework of the negotiations.  
She pointed out that in ten years, the Chile-US Ag reement would have more than 95 per cent of trade 
liberalized (already going beyond what it was considered  to be "substantially all the trade"), and that 
those tariff lines for which the transition peri od would extend beyond ten years only represented a 
small percentage of the whole schedule. 
9. The representative of the European Communities  noted that in Article 22.3(2) of the 
Agreement, on the dispute settlement procedures, it was contemplated that "once the complaining 
Party has requested a panel under an agreement referr ed to by the agreement, the forum selected shall 
be used to the exclusion to all the others".  He asked the Parties what was the relationship between the 
multilateral and the bilateral systems for dispute se ttlement and, more specifically, whether this 
Article implied giving up the use of the multilatera l dispute settlement once the bilateral process had 
been concluded or, on the contrary, if the exclus ion was only intended while the proceedings were 
taking place.  The representative of the United States ' preliminary reply was that both procedures were 
exclusive, but she added that the qu estion would be answered in writing. 
10. The representative of the European Communities  requested clarification for the noted 
differences in commitments on government proc urement under the Agreement, where Chile was 
providing access to United States enterprises at the townsh ip or sub-regional level, that is at a lower 
level than that committed by the United States.  The representative of Chile  tentatively replied that 
this was probably related to the fact that in Ch ile, as opposed to the United States, there were not 
different levels of legislation according to the di fferent levels of government.  The representatives of 
both Chile  and the United States  said that they would provide a full answer to this question in writing.  
The representative of the European Communities  asked that such answer cover both the goods and 
services aspects of the matter. 
11. Under Section IV ("Other"), the repr esentative of the European Communities  asked the 
Parties whether they had invoked the agricultural saf eguard mechanism so far.  The representative of 
Chile  referred to document WT/REG160/5, where they had provided answers to the many questions 
on safeguards raised at the February 2005 meeting. 
12. The representative of the European Communities  requested a briefing on the measures that 
the Parties had taken regarding export subsidi es on agricultural goods. The representative of Chile  
replied that, to her knowledge, there had been no cha nges in this respect, but retained the possibility 
of confirming that reply later. 
13. The Chairman  asked the representative of the European  Communities if he wanted to have 
written answers to the question he had just posed. The representative of the United States  requested 
the representative of the European Communities to provide his questions in writing, since they were 
confused about what questions  had already been answered.  WT/REG160/M/2 
 Page 3 
 
 
  14. The Chairman  said that the second round of examination of the goods aspects of the Free 
Trade Agreement between the United States and Chile  had allowed the Committee to clarify certain 
points though others remained.  He requested delega tions wishing to ask questions to forward them to 
the Secretariat by 17 February, and the Parties to s ubmit replies in writing by not later than 10 March.  
The Committee could consider the factual examin ation as complete.  Once the replies had been 
circulated to Members, any request for additional information could be dealt with without holding 
another round of formal examination and the Secr etariat could begin drafting the examination report 
for this Agreement. 
15. To a question by the representativ e of the European Communities  asking whether there could 
be the opportunity to have another exchange in th e case his delegation did not consider the written 
answers satisfactory, the Chairman  replied in the affirmative, alt hough he did not consider at this 
point that the factual examination should be contin ued.  In this respect, the representative of China  
expressed his concern, as he did not agree that the discussions between the Parties and the Members 
had been sufficient; he thus requested the transpar ency process to be continued for at least another 
round, especially since it could not be excluded that further questions be raised by any other Member 
on the Agreement.  On the question raised, the representative of Canada  expressed the view that some 
judgement needed to be left to the Chairm an and the representative of the United States  suggested that 
once circulated the answers to all Members, if any of  them did not consider them satisfactory, another 
round of examination could be scheduled for the next session.  The Chairman  proposed to continue in 
this way.  It was so agreed .  
16. The Committee took note  of the comments made. 
B. SERVICES ASPECTS  
17. Given that the Committee had already had a round of discussion under each of the headings 
of the Standard Format, document WT/REG160/4, the Chairman  proposed to open the floor for 
comments and questions by broad Section. 
18. Under Section II ("Provisions Affecting Trade in Services"), the representative of Australia  
had noted from the answer provided by the Partie s in June 2005 that the Agreement contained a 
ratchet to bind any liberalization of non-confor ming measures and wanted to know whether the 
ratchet mechanism had been applied or not.  The representative of Chile  answered that this 
mechanism was applied automatically , according to the principle that whenever a country liberalized 
further than its previous commitmen ts, the ratchet system applied. 
19. The Chairman  observed that the Committee seemed to have exhausted the factual inquiry and 
proposed that the Secretariat begin drafting the report for this examination.  The representative of the 
European Communities  agreed to the extent that the servi ces part of his question on government 
procurement was answered satisfactorily.  Thus, the Chairman  decided not to charge the Secretariat to 
write a report yet, but to only write it once it had b een clarified that the factual examination had been 
finalized.  It was so agreed . 
20. The Committee took note  of the comments made. 
__________